John 8:31-36
Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to any one. How is it that you say, `You will be made free'?" Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not continue in the house for ever; the son continues for ever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
Comment: Reject greed and exploitation
The world had "grown weary of greed, exploitation and division, of the tedium of false idols and the pain of false promises", and I urge you to seek the true, the good and the beautiful.
Delivering his first major speech in Australia, the Pope also lamented the advent of television and computer entertainment exalting violence and sexual degradation. "I ask myself, could anyone standing face to face with people who actually do suffer violence and sexual exploitation 'explain' that these tragedies, portrayed in virtual form, are considered merely entertainment?
"Do not be fooled by those who see you as just another consumer in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the god, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth. Christ offers more. Indeed, he offers everything!"
In his address to pilgrims, as he warned against secularism and relativism and said something sinister stemmed from the fact that freedom and tolerance were so often separated from truth. “This is fuelled by the notion, widely held today, that there are no absolute truths to guide our lives. Relativism, by indiscriminately giving value to practically everything, has made experience all important," he said. But this led not to genuine freedom but to moral or intellectual confusion, lower standards, loss of self-respect, and even to despair. While secularism presented itself as neutral and inclusive, in reality it imposed a world view, he said.
"If God is irrelevant to public life, then society will be shaped in a godless image, and debate and policy concerning the public good will be driven more by consequences than by principles grounded in truth."
Source: POPE Benedict XVI – one of the many 2008 World Youth Day addressess to pilgrims
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